The families of victims of the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa support the Obama administration's decision to try Ahmed Ghailani in civilian court, even if they were disappointed with the verdict, a spokesperson for the families tells us.

This puts the families directly at odds with many Republican and conservative critics who have seized on the verdict to pillory the decision to prosecute Ghailani in the civilian court system. Liz Cheney, for instance, said the verdict shows the decision to opt for civilian courts was "reckless" and "signals weakness in a time of war."

But Edith Bartley, who lost two family members in the bombings and has emerged as a de facto media spokesperson for other families of victims, tells Adam Serwer in an interview that the families don't fault the Obama Justice Department's handling of the case. She also called on critics of Justice's conduct to stop turning the trial and verdict into a "political issue," which she denounced as "unacceptable."

"We thought it was most appropriate," Bartley said of the decision to prosecute Ghailani in civilian courts. "He was part of the original indictment in 2001, where four members of al-Qaeda were tried and convicted of these bombings. At that time he was at large, he was apprehended obviously years later, so it was most appropriate to have him in federal court."

Bartley did not comment on her view of civilian courts in general as a weapon against terror suspects, preferring to confine her comments to this particular case. And as she has done in other interviews, Bartley stressed that the families are deeply disappointed by the jury's verdict, which acquitted Ghailani of all but one criminal count.

But other interviewers have mystifyingly failed to ask Bartley what the families think of the Obama administration's handling of the case in light of the verdict. And she told us that despite their disappointment, they blame the jury for what happened, and don't fault the conduct of Obama's Justice Department. She also called on critics to stop politicizing the outcome.

"We certainly don't think that the discussion about which venue to use to bring these people to justice should become a political issue," said Bartley, who has spent years fighting for government compensation for families of victims of the 1998 embassy bombings along the lines of that received by 9/11 families.

"To make it a political issue is not at all the appropriate position for any of our lawmakers or others to take. That to us is really unacceptable."

The entire body of thinking that the trials have to be in civilian court is a part of the liberal agenda to try to make Bush look bad.

The whole purpose is to try to make the case that Bush did something against the Constitution in the war on terror.

The problem that Obama ran into is that he was using flawed logic: in a war, enemy combatents are a separate category.

It is a war.

In a war, different rules apply.

Obama is the one who made the whole thing political.

Same with Gitmo, its a political issue, designed to try to make the case that Bush is doing something wrong.

Funny thing is, after being confronted with the real world, Obama's Middle East policies look alot like Bush's. And where Obama is differing, it does not look like any improvement, but rather a serious misdirection.

sbj -- that's kind of an amazing argument. the decision to try him in civilian courts was a policy decision -- one that was made despite the extreme political risks associated with it.

that aside, it's irrelevant. the point is that the spox for the victims' families is directly at odds with the current right wing interpretation of the verdict. that's newsworthy regardless of the motives behind the original decision to pursue a civilian trial

This is amazing! I have a copy of the official, Democratic party, weekly, talking points memo and almost every item written in the WaPo is coming, word for word, from that memo. I always suspected this was so and now I know.

There's anti-gun editorials.

Repeal of DADT is right up there.

Pro-illegal immigration/amnesty....bingo!

Every potential conflict between the TEA PARTY folks and the G.O.P.establishment is there.

It's all here. It's a clarion call to all Democrat, media organizations on what to hammer the Republicans with , this week.

Come now Mr Sargent. Let't take a look at this situation from another perspective.

You, as a personification of the left's POV, have uncovered a single individual who thinks that Obama's approach was OK.

Your and Mr Serwer want us to believe:
(1) She speaks for all this guy's victims.
(2) She has the bona fides to make her particular POV valuable.
(3) Therefore the critics are somehow wrong and this lady is somehow right.

Sorry, I can go along with that. I'll take the thoughts of insightful experienced people like Andy McCarthy over the emotional responses of Edith Bartley. I respect her position in all of this, but ultimately these are political questions, matters of high policy, not therefore to be subject solely to the whims of certain people.

It does not matter if the spox is for the "victims' families" or not. The person could be a partisan democratic operative for all we know.

As for whether the issue is politicized or not, that has nothing to do with whether it is "newsworthy," those are two different things.

The truth came out in some comments over the weekend: the liberals really "have nothing" since Reagan.

After Reagan, the liberals tried to stake out a new agenda - and these efforts have become a complete failure.

The American People do not want the liberal agenda, and several planks are completely unworkable.

The liberal agenda also has given the democrats reason to believe that "costs don't matter," and somehow deceive themselves into the idea that if they could put the liberal agenda in place, that America would turn against the Conservative ideas.

Well, in many cases, the American People still want the Reagan agenda especially its fiscal aspects - regardless of how they feel on the individual parts of the liberal agenda.

Hence, the liberals end up with a mish-mash of polling which indicate that they get supports for parts of their programs - but never support when the full costs are considered in the polling questions.

The liberals have re-entered a desert of issues - the American People have rejected their agenda, and they will be searching for another set of issues to help them.

The very idea that that liberal agenda may or may not get pushed through during a lame duck session - after a stunning election defeat - is telling of the state of the liberals.

It doesn't matter what the liberals are able to do during the lame duck session - their agenda is dead, the American People do not want it.

So, it's over - no matter what they push through now.

Ironically, if the liberal do end up pushing through anything now, they stand to get the American People even more angry at them.

For the next two years, the health care bill will hang over the liberals, and insure their demise. It will only insure their further defeats.

@Greg: "sbj -- that's kind of an amazing argument. the decision to try him in civilian courts was a policy decision."

Give me a break, Greg. Obama campaigned on this carp! This wasn't a policy decision.

"The Obama administration has made Ghailani its test case to prove that the civilian criminal-justice system works perfectly well in wartime against enemy combatants — to show that we don’t need military commissions or other alternatives specially tailored to address the peculiarities of terrorism cases. The administration figured Ghailani was a safe bet."

What I find especially noteworthy, though, are double-dippers -- those Republicans who endorsed (and in several cases, co-sponsored) legislation to make an individual health care mandate the law of the land, but nevertheless signed onto McConnell's brief declaring an individual health care mandate unconstitutional.

It's quite a motley crew: Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and John Thune (R-S.D.). All seven supported the individual mandate, right up until Democrats agreed with them, at which point they decided their own idea was unconstitutional. (My personal favorite is Grassley, who proclaimed on Fox News, during the fight over Obama's plan, "I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandate.")

yeah you just want to fight. How nice for you. tough weekend or what? Your team lose? Conjugical rights being denied? Cat got snatched by coyotes?

I believe the individual mandate to be unconstitutional. I don't much care who signed on to it.

Republicans haven't earned my trust. I find myself repeating that frequently here. If you want to vent about the fecklessness of Republicans go right the heck ahead pal. You don't need me for that. While you're at it, why not vent about all politicians.

The drug-induced rantings of El Rushbo and the rest of the conservatards shows they're really on the side of the terrorists. They deliberately sabotaged the chances of giving them a fair trial. They knew we would win any fair trial. So they deliberately made sure the evidence would be tainted.

The drug-induced rantings of El Rushbo and the rest of the conservatards shows they're really on the side of the terrorists. They deliberately sabotaged the chances of giving them a fair trial. They knew we would win any fair trial. So they deliberately made sure the evidence would be tainted.

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